You’re not going to die, I told myself, you’re dreaming.

by Bec Fary

I felt like someone was trying to speak to me in this dream. There was a very distinctive voice, a deep man’s voice with crisp enunciation, saying something directly to me. Although I knew he was speaking to me, and saying something important, I couldn’t hear him. There was some sense of fate or destiny tied with this voice, like maybe he was my soulmate, but I also felt some sort of risk or danger.

As often happens when I sleep during the day or at odd times of the night, I was aware of my dream before I was fully asleep. This time, it felt like he was speaking to me from my dreams, and I wouldn’t hear him until I slept. I was torn; I knew I wouldn’t hear him til I was asleep, but if he said something in my dreams I knew I wouldn’t remember the message when I woke.

I slept. I remember him standing, waiting, under a lamp post. I don’t remember what he told me.

I woke multiple times after convoluted dreams about work, stress and a smiling, wrinkled and surprising face. When I fell asleep again, maybe for the third time, I was alone, dreaming but very much my waking self. I remember watching a documentary and thinking I wanted to tweet about it.

Suddenly I was in a shallow swimming pool attached to the side of a tall, glassy building. It was nighttime, or maybe just inside a very large, dark room. Everything was blue-black, and I could still hear the voices from the documentary echoing through the space. At that point I realised it wasn’t real. I wanted to dive into a deeper pool but thought maybe it was too far away.

You’re not going to die, I told myself, you’re dreaming. So I breathed in hard, maybe too hard, as I went underwater and I choked, jolted awake. I clearly remember my lungs filling with the cool water.

I woke into another darkened space, this time a dream classroom. I was standing in front of the teacher, who was congratulating me on a lucid dream. I desperately wanted to write about the dream, but couldn’t find a place to sit. Trying to get out of the spotlight, I walked around, but saw all the other students were crowded into small rooms with locked doors.

I became aware of the pressing need to wake up. You’re just napping, I told myself, time to wake up and write about that dream.